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Which ones of the rules of storytelling didn't you cover in your script? Just wondering...

#9: When you're stuck, make a list of what WOULDN'T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
#18: You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
#22: What's the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

Unlike the Writer's Store link, though, he doesn't argue against acts at all, but rather for dividing a story into as many acts as the story requires (5, 9, 12, whatever). His basic argument is that an act break happens when the main character(s) makes a choice that sends the narrative in a new direction, and as such, 3 acts is actually way too few to make an engaging story.

It's a interesting way of looking at it, and hearkens back to Maurice's comments elsewhere that fan films tend to have passive protagonists who don't act to move the story forward. You get a bland, unstructured mess that way - even in professional films. *COUGHGREENLANTERNCOUGH*

__________________"From the darkness you must fall, failed and weak, to darkness all."

The problem with a lot of critiques of why a rule should be rejected is that they frequently ignore why the rule exists in the first place. Sure, there are lots of ways to tell stories, and—as I pointed out much earlier in this thread when I diagrammed a couple of shows—they don't always fall perfectly neatly into a 3-act structure.

BUT it's also true that many many popular story types hold to the basic tenets of the 3-act, which, as before, break down to:

Introduction = Introduce Problem

Exposition = Complicate Problem

Climax = Overcome or fail to overcome problem (often tied to a decision)

One can rightfully quibble over things like whether there really are such things as "inciting incidents" or whatnot, but when you boil it down to the 1, 2, 3 above, that really does cover an awful lot of stories.

Many rules are rules because they work. This applies to writing, lighting, editing, etc.

Cinematography rules weren't concocted by cinematographers with a penchant for making up structure, but came out of practical observation of what worked on the screen. You can go back to the early silent era and find some of the action hard to follow because the filmmakers hadn't yet noticed which kinds of shots worked together to make a coherent narrative. Do you know why camera coverage in a scene tends to be closer to directly in an actor's eyeline the closer the shot is to them? There IS a reason, and I bet you can guess it since I just raised it as an issue, but absent that knowledge you're not making as informed a decision as you could be, ergo you're less likely to producing an effective scene than you would if you knew the rules.

__________________

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"There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
—Will Rogers

There IS a reason, and I bet you can guess it since I just raised it as an issue, but absent that knowledge you're not making as informed a decision as you could be, ergo you're less likely to producing an effective scene than you would if you followed the rules.

I'd change that statement into "... if you knew the rules".
You don't have to follow them if you don't want to, but you should know what you're doing and why you're doing it.

There IS a reason, and I bet you can guess it since I just raised it as an issue, but absent that knowledge you're not making as informed a decision as you could be, ergo you're less likely to producing an effective scene than you would if you followed the rules.

I'd change that statement into "... if you knew the rules".
You don't have to follow them if you don't want to, but you should know what you're doing and why you're doing it.

Good point. Long before Picasso became the greatest abstract artist ever, he was a superbly trained traditional artist. He may have broken every rule in the book when he turned to cubism, but he knew exactly what he was doing and why. Jean Luc Godard, did the something with a film in the 60's. He deliberately used weird camera angles and distracting cuts to create a specific effect. Going back to the Phase II episode "The Child", I really appreciated the fact that the director and editor worked in a very conservative fashion. I don't recall a single place where I thought an edit was awkward or distracting, which is an incredible accomplishment for even the best of fan productions. They got some criticism for being conservative, but I thought they did a great job and used exactly the right style for the story.

There IS a reason, and I bet you can guess it since I just raised it as an issue, but absent that knowledge you're not making as informed a decision as you could be, ergo you're less likely to producing an effective scene than you would if you followed the rules.

I'd change that statement into "... if you knew the rules".
You don't have to follow them if you don't want to, but you should know what you're doing and why you're doing it.

You're right on that word choice. I tweaked that, as it's more what I meant than the word I'd written.

MikeH92467 wrote:

...Long before Picasso became the greatest abstract artist ever, he was a superbly trained traditional artist. He may have broken every rule in the book when he turned to cubism, but he knew exactly what he was doing and why. Jean Luc Godard, did the something with a film in the 60's. He deliberately used weird camera angles and distracting cuts to create a specific effect.

Exactly. I like to say you need to be able to walk before you can run.

I don't want to pull this into a discussion about cinematography, as I was merely using it illustrate a principle about "rules". The real topic here is writing, after all.

__________________

* * *

"There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
—Will Rogers

There IS a reason, and I bet you can guess it since I just raised it as an issue, but absent that knowledge you're not making as informed a decision as you could be, ergo you're less likely to producing an effective scene than you would if you followed the rules.

I'd change that statement into "... if you knew the rules".
You don't have to follow them if you don't want to, but you should know what you're doing and why you're doing it.

You're right on that word choice. I tweaked that, as it's more what I meant than the word I'd written.

MikeH92467 wrote:

...Long before Picasso became the greatest abstract artist ever, he was a superbly trained traditional artist. He may have broken every rule in the book when he turned to cubism, but he knew exactly what he was doing and why. Jean Luc Godard, did the something with a film in the 60's. He deliberately used weird camera angles and distracting cuts to create a specific effect.

Exactly. I like to say you need to be able to walk before you can run.

I don't want to pull this into a discussion about cinematography, as I was merely using it illustrate a principle about "rules". The real topic here is writing, after all.

I think your bottom line is pretty clear: know the rules first, once you know them inside and out, break them as you see fit in the interest of good storytelling.

I'd change that statement into "... if you knew the rules".
You don't have to follow them if you don't want to, but you should know what you're doing and why you're doing it.

You're right on that word choice. I tweaked that, as it's more what I meant than the word I'd written.

MikeH92467 wrote:

...Long before Picasso became the greatest abstract artist ever, he was a superbly trained traditional artist. He may have broken every rule in the book when he turned to cubism, but he knew exactly what he was doing and why. Jean Luc Godard, did the something with a film in the 60's. He deliberately used weird camera angles and distracting cuts to create a specific effect.

Exactly. I like to say you need to be able to walk before you can run.

I don't want to pull this into a discussion about cinematography, as I was merely using it illustrate a principle about "rules". The real topic here is writing, after all.

I think your bottom line is pretty clear: know the rules first, once you know them inside and out, break them as you see fit in the interest of good storytelling.

I dunno if I'd go as far as "as you see fit" because that makes it sound like these things are obstacles to be overcome rather than what they are, which are guidelines. But you've more of summed up my sentiment.

__________________

* * *

"There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
—Will Rogers

I was reading through some correspondence from original Star Trek production, and one thing that got mentioned frequently in notes on the scripts was misuse of "aye" "yes sir" and "negative". As I see this a LOT in fan films (and, as Middyseafort points out, Babylon 5 is rife with it), I thought a little cheat sheet about this might be useful:

"Aye" means "understood", not yes. "I don't want to see another tribble!" "Aye."

"Aye aye," means "order understood and I will carry it out", and not yes or an emphatic yes. "I want you to get every tribble off this bridge!" "Aye, aye, sir!"

"Yes" and "No" are the appropriate responses to questions, as in, "Have you tried hailing them?" "Yes, sir." Do not use "affirmative" and "negative".

"Affirmative" and "Negative" are NOT used in normal conversation. They are "voice procedure" cues used over radios, etc. Like the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, they are used over communications equipment where it's possible that "yes" or "no" can be missed or misheard, much the way you'd say "niner" instead of "nine" because the latter can be mistaken for "five", or why Craps dealers say "Yo-leven" instead of "eleven" because the latter can be misheard as "seven".

__________________

* * *

"There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.
—Will Rogers